


snakeskin

by quadrille



Series: they weren't all mistakes [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2x13, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exes, F/M, Infidelity, Old Friends, Season/Series 02, falice - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 11:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13833105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrille/pseuds/quadrille
Summary: And when she shows up at the Whyte Wyrm like a valkyrie storming into battle, her voice loud and ribald, snapping her fingers at the bartender, it feels like she’s suctioned all the air out of the room. FP can’t help watching her from across the bar: the way she dons that old snakeskin and settles right in, fitting in like she never left.





	snakeskin

“Is it true what they say about men who’ve just been released from prison, FP?”

Alice’s arms are crossed, her voice challenging. She’s not even sure why she’s needling him like this, except that she’s feeling punchy and combative and in need of something to prove. Her old Southside self is bristling beneath her skin; it’s been years since she had the serpent tattoo carved into her hip, but she can still feel it burning there these days, fangs lodged in her skin, a reminder.

The man looks taken aback, however. “What do they say?”

“That they are _incredibly_ sexually frustrated.”

The kids erupt in embarrassed horror, with a burst of Jughead’s “Uh, wow” and Betty’s “ _Mom!_ ” Alice strides back to her car, while FP smirks behind her, amused and knowing.

(It seemed a non sequitur, but it’s the same words she uttered to him so many years ago as a teenager, the first time he came back from juvie. She picked him up then, too, but with a slightly different welcome: her clambering into his lap in the front seat of her car, teeth against his ear, his hands slipping up her shirt.)

* * *

  


He’s less amused a few days later when she comes marching into Pop’s while he’s on shift. She’s railing about Betty attending this Serpent party, and he’s telling her to simply come. Chaperone.

“Are you high on fumes? I _can’t._ ”

“Yes, you can,” FP says, firmly. “Stop by. Say hi to some old friends.”

“Hal would never come,” Alice scoffs, with the air of a parting blow.

The man’s response is even faster, almost immediate: “Well, then leave him.”

There’s a pause that draws out too long, FP blinking, having somehow stunned himself into silence. "At home," he amends a moment later.

Alice’s mouth is dry.

  


* * *

  


And when she shows up at the Whyte Wyrm like a valkyrie storming into battle, her voice loud and ribald, snapping her fingers at the bartender, it feels like she’s suctioned all the air out of the room. FP can’t help watching her from across the bar: the way she dons that old snakeskin and settles right in, fitting in like she never left. Black leather jacket, black bra, transparent shirt, dark wine-red lipstick.

_Tequila, straight up, hold the worm._

She slams back the drink in a single smooth movement, and FP sees what she might’ve been if she’d stayed, never married Hal Cooper, never moved to the northside. She’s still fierce, but tonight she’s an animal showing its teeth.

  


* * *

  


“I threw you out once, Hal, I can do it again.”

  


* * *

  


It’s almost astonishing, how easily they settle back into being separated. Her husband packs up his things, storms off in a pique — they’re not even shouting at each other by that point, it’s just a terse goodbye exchanged at the door before she shuts it behind him.

And she doesn’t regret it. Not one bit.

Alice’s mother bear instincts are on overdrive. Faced with the choice between her flesh and blood, the boy she gave away, whose life she ruined, versus Hal and his cowardice — she chooses her children, every time. She’s so painfully aware of the fact that she has a troubled boy and a troubled girl upstairs, a family she’s trying to hold together with her bare hands.

She pours herself a glass of wine, and picks up the phone.

“You used to work in construction before you put on that ridiculous apron. Come over, will you?”

Her voice is demanding, and she hangs up before FP has a chance to argue.

He arrives on her front doorstep a while later; she can tell before he even rings the doorbell, thanks to the distant bass rumble of his motorcycle disturbing the muted silence of her suburban neighbourhood. When she opens the door, she finds Forsythe Jones in oversized flannel, slouchy jeans, though no leather jacket (he does make some concessions to camouflage while visiting the Northside). He looks lean and hungry like a wolf; such a far cry from her prim and well-pressed husband, who’s all soft around the edges and petulant. 

“Oh, good, you brought your tools,” she says airily, waving him in. He rolls his eyes, but follows.

FP changes the locks on her door while she sits at the dining table with her laptop, glasses perched on the end of her nose, working on an article for The Register. She’s aware of each click and clink and rustle from the other side of the room, but pointedly ignores him while he works.

Until his shadow falls over her computer screen, dusting off his hands. “So that’s done. What’s going on?”

She shrugs.

That familiar smirk at the corner of his mouth always reminds her of their history; she can feel her past nagging at her whenever she’s around him. Alice the Serpent. She can still remember the smell of spilled beer and leather and cologne in the Whyte Wyrm.

(And she remembers a younger Forsythe, tangled up in each other in the back of his truck — before she got involved with her clean-cut footballer and got knocked up and got married, in close succession, riding her ticket all the way out of the Southside.)

  


* * *

  


There’s only one person she’s still in touch with who’s professionally disposed of a body, but there’s still no question that she would call him. Of course it would be FP. When the chips are down, who else would she call?

She’s waiting at Pop’s with the kids, milkshake untouched at her elbow. (Another reminder: Saturday night dates with FP in this exact five-and-dime, timeless Formica and jukeboxes and her foot tangling with his under the table. He tasted of peppermint gum.)

When FP slinks in through that door and squeezes into the booth beside her, combing a hand through his hair, she feels herself breathe for what feels like the first time in days.

“Jeez, dad, you reek,” Jughead points out, his nose wrinkling.

The man beside her smells of freshly-turned earth. Wet leaves. The sharp astringent bitterness of lye. He needs to take a shower, very badly. 

“Sodium hydroxide,” FP says quietly. “In a week, there’ll be nothing left. Not even his teeth.”

And at that, it’s like all the pent-up fear and tension and paranoia finally wells over, all of Alice’s dams and walls crashing down all at once, and her vaunted self-control dissolves: her face crumples with tears. “Thank you, FP. I’m sorry for involving Betty, and that she pulled Jughead into this…”

Unexpectedly, his hand settles on hers, a reassuring weight as she bites back a sob. Her fingers curl in his.

“We take care of our own,” he says.

She feels like she’s aged a decade. She can still smell the lye on him, and feels like it’s permeating everything, all their clothes. The other diners are going to start staring any moment. “Let’s get out of here,” Alice says. “You need to clean up, and we’re just a few blocks away. Come on. Betty?”

“I think Juggy and I will hang out here for a bit,” Betty says, her voice careful. Alice watches her for a moment, then nods. She’s already feeling fragile, bent out of shape. Whatever comfort this boy can give her daughter, she’s glad of it.

FP and Alice drive back in separate cars, her knuckles white as she clutches the steering wheel. She lets him into the house with the new keys, and then surveys the rest of her home, which looks perfect and untouched. (Except for the small signs of something being off, if you know what to look for: the table slid too far to the right. The missing dining room rug. The lingering scent of bleach.)

“Baking soda or activated charcoal on a plate can soak up some of that smell,” FP says after a pause.

She sighs. “Of course you’d know what to do about that, too.”

“Single dad,” he scoffs back. “Plus, it’s not always… this. I’ve done my share of housecleaning chores, Alice.”

Stepping over to the linen closet, she sifts through it, then throws a towel at him. FP raises a single skeptical eyebrow at her and she forces herself to relax, unclench her jaw. “Sorry. I’m… high-strung, tonight.”

“You’re high-strung every night.”

 _How would you know,_ she almost demands. It’s been a long time since they hung out together, let alone at night. But instead: “The guest bathroom is upstairs, second door on the left.“

  


* * *

  


His hair is wet, and thankfully now he simply smells of her shampoo and soap. Far better than the rot, the acid. Alice doesn’t feel sick anymore, and can therefore step closer to him, resting a hand against his arm. 

“Thank you.”

FP is on edge. He seems like a nervous dog sometimes, all skittish and waiting for the other shoe to drop; moreso since he got out of prison and got sober. “Welcome,” he says. 

And so. The fleeting urge is there: if this were a romance novel, or a movie, this is the point where they would fall into each other’s arms. Old exes, reuniting.

But this isn’t a book — this is just her stupid life, and so instead Alice unconsciously straightens the neck of his flannel shirt, folds her palm against his chest. Leans up on her towering heels to press a kiss to his cheek, skimming his jaw, then steps away.

“Time for you to go,” she says. 

“You sure?” An assessing look. 

That telling beat, the hesitation before Alice answers, tell him (tells both of them) all they need to know. But in the end, Alice still says, “Yes.”

When she carefully shuts the front door after him, clicking shut and hearing the snap of the latch, Alice breathes out long and slow, feeling the empty house settle around her. It’s always been her domain, but now it feels wrong and haunted with the kids gone, Hal gone, even FP gone, just the smell of bleach left behind.

She probably should have let him stay. She gets to be here, desperately, desperately lonely, while Hal warms Penelope fucking Blossom’s bed. 

_Useless_ , she tells herself. This is useless.

  


* * *

  


The kids have gotten rid of the drug dealer’s car, dumping it in the Sweetwater River. It’s been almost a week of peace and quiet, and it seems like the loose ends have indeed been trimmed. 

But Alice is on her third glass of wine when she picks up the phone to say, again: “Come over.”

Their children are out — maybe on a date, maybe Betty and Jughead got back together, but as long as she’s safe and Chic isn’t off rustling up more trouble, surely that must be good enough.

“Everything alright with the locks, Alice?” FP asks when he shows up. His voice is a lazy drawl, and still so familiar. He likes to say her name. She likes the way it sounds on his tongue.

“My husband is sleeping with Penelope Blossom,” she says, matter-of-factly.

A blink. “Oh.”

“You don’t have to pretend to be surprised.” Alice’s voice is bitter, scathing. “I’m sure the whole town knows.”

“I’m… sorry,” FP says, but there’s a rising question mark on the end of that sentence, as if he’s not sure what she expects from him.

Alice makes it clear a moment later, however, when she seizes his shirt to pull him closer and captures his mouth with hers, lips hard against his, dragging him against her. FP is stunned and motionless for a moment, hands raised like as if to say _look, I’m unarmed_. When he doesn’t react, doesn’t touch her, she breaks loose and glowers up at him.

“Are you going to make a lady do all the work around here, FP?”

“Alice…” He trails off.

But she walks the man backwards until his back collides with her living room wall. His wary eyes are looking down at her; then, finally, some tension ebbs from his shoulders. “You sure?” FP asks, and it’s in the exact same tone he used the other night. She takes another step closer and his hands settle on her, bracketing her hips.

“C’mon,” she murmurs.

Maybe it’s aimless revenge. Or nostalgia for the good old days. Her old serpent self rearing its ugly head. A loneliness, a hunger. Genuine warmth and gratitude towards him, for being there for her when no one else could be. Some ancient seething longing that she thought she’d buried forever, but which turned out to be simply laying dormant. Maybe it’s a bit of all the above.

But he doesn’t mind which one it is, and neither does she: all she cares about right now is mapping the angles and corners of his hips, the curve of his ribs, finding new scars on his chest, and re-learning how very, very good FP Jones is with his mouth and hands — and most importantly, not being alone tonight.


End file.
